A Pokemon Breeder's Mishap
by MounkeyJames
Summary: Erin's a breeder who operates her daycare with the help of her pokemon. After a particular mishap she finds she needs to rely on them in more ways than she ever expected.
1. A Day in the Life of a Pokemon Breeder

Erin's alarm went off at 4am as usual.

She pulled the sheets in a little tighter and temporarily fantasized about just turning the alarm off and sleeping until noon. She smiled at the thought, and let her empty stomach motivate her out of bed into the kitchen for breakfast.

Her Marowak, Scout, trotted over to her. Greeting her with a "Marow".

She patted his head sleepily, "Good morning to you too, Scout"

Of any of her Pokémon, Scout was the most serious. Erin pulled a dry blue poke puff out from the shelf for Scout to eat while she started cooking her eggs. Scout sat at the table and chewed his food very slowly and deliberately. He was the kind who could take care of himself if necessary, but he always tried to wake up at the same time as Erin so that they could spend a little bit of time together before the other Pokémon woke up.

At one time Erin had worried that Scout wasn't getting enough sleep, so she had set her poke gear's alarm to vibrate so that he could sleep in a little. She had tripped over him almost immediately upon going into the kitchen though, completely throwing that plan out the window. Scout had been extremely upset at the time and Erin, who rarely saw him loose his more reserved demeanor, had gotten scared she'd really hurt him. As it had turned out however, not hearing her get up in the morning had caught him off guard, which he did not like at all. For two straight weeks after that Scout had slept right outside her door. It wasn't until Erin went out and bought an extra loud alarm clock and used that for four days that he returned to his bed in the kitchen.

Erin herself was a bit slow moving in the morning. She always tried to wake up at four so that she could take her day at a leisurely pace. She started work at 6am, but the commute wasn't bad at all. She owned, and lived out of, a Pokémon day care.

Once her personal time was done, the first order of business was to check for any early rising trainers who wanted to take out or drop off their Pokémon before setting out for the day. Today the only one in the lobby was Quicksilver, her Rattata.

Quicksilver patrolled the day care at night. Most nights one could probably say he just wandered around entertaining himself. It was really important not to let him get too bored, or else he could get himself into all sorts of mischief. One night he had taken it as a personal challenge to learn how to open all the doors and cupboards in the kitchen, and further decided to do a little late night taste testing of the various treats and snacks. It might have originally been his intent to be sneaky, but at some point during that raid he must have decided he had gone too far, and rather than trying to fix it he decided to just enjoy it while it lasted. While he did get in deep trouble with Erin for that, it was Scout who ultimately took that personally, since the whole thing basically happened in his bedroom. The incident had initially put the two on bad terms with each other, but that feeling eventually turned into a more or less good natured sort of rivalry. Scout would sometimes even help with night duty at the beginning or end, although he may just have been keeping an eye on Quicksilver.

Although it was rare, the daycare had been targeted on three separate occasions by crooks who decided hitting up a day care in the dead of night would be a good way to score rare Pokémon, cash, etc. Quicksilver could hear anyone trying too hard to be quiet, and he could get Erin up and ready the meet them with time to spare. His mischievous nature aside, he'd no doubt earned his place on the team.

Quicksilver turned his head excitedly when she came in and the fact his first priority was seeing if she was carrying any food signaled to Erin it had been a calm night. She gave him some Colby Jack cheese and he jumped up onto her head while he ate it, and she continued her rounds.

Erin walked out onto the grounds to check on the nocturnal Pokémon next. You could always tell which Pokémon traveled a lot with their trainers recently by who kept unnatural sleeping patterns. For instance, there was Hoothoot and Zubat checked in at the time who clearly had been dropped off soon after they'd been caught. They'd taken to each other quite quickly and for the last few nights Erin had fallen asleep to the playful sounds of them chirping and twittering. On the other hand there were also types like the Charzard and Haxourus pair, who had been there for about a week now. They were both clearly regulars on a team from a trainer who kept late hours, and where showing no signs of changing their sleeping schedules any time soon. Their trainer, Quinn, had been frequenting the Day Care to pick up eggs and check in on the two.  
Quinn was one of those trainers whose goals seemed loftier then beating the Elite Four. He didn't talk much about himself, but he was always polite and clearly knew a thing or two about Pokémon breeding. Erin was willing to bet he was trying to either get a Pokémon with perfect IVs, or was aiming for a shiny Charmander with a good move set.

Thinking of Pokémon eggs, Erin unconsciously looked at the pond for King, her Slowpoke. He was not snoozing on his rock which meant…

Quicksilver jumped off her head and sprinted towards the Charzard and Haxourus. Erin followed after him and as they got closer she caught sight of that little pink form snuggled up nonchalantly with the two giant dragons, and wrapped up around a speckled little egg.

King always knew who had had eggs. Erin made sure both Charzard and Haxourus saw it was her before she touched the egg herself. These two might be generally well behaved, but it's never a good idea to spook a parent. As she picked up the egg she smiled to herself and said softly, "Now how did you get here?"  
It was an inside joke among breeders to act like they didn't know how eggs were made. Was there chemistry between Pokémon? Oh she could tell you that. Confused by IV breeding? She had a flow chart she handed out for free, and even made a tidy side profit writing a few books on the matter. But how did that egg get there? Every time, with no hesitation, she would say "I have no idea how it got there, but your Pokémon had it".

King stretched lazily and grinned up at Erin. She finished wrapping the egg up in a blanket and set it aside while she pulled out a bright red poke puff for him. He liked his food super spicy. While her other Pokémon might steal food here or there, everyone knew better then to touch King's food.

Erin had picked up King during her traveling days and had named him with the intent to evolve him into a Slowking. She'd discovered her true love lay in Pokémon breeding and had opened up the day care before she had found a King's Stone though, and it was one of the few regrets she had about trading a life of travel for the one she had now. Every once in a while, even now, she would arrange someone else to look after the day care for a few days and try her luck tracking down that King's Stone.

King himself was cool with things either way. He acted like that towards most of life. He was a super mellow Pokémon who liked to spend most of his days lounging on his rock and taking in subtle changes in the clouds and sky. The one exception where he showed initiative was with Pokémon eggs. He seemed to feel it in the air when an egg was coming and he'd trot off in that direction as fast he his stubby little legs could carry him. He was particularly good with calming new parents, who could get very confused about what was going on. If Erin was nearby he'd bring her along, but his first priority was always first and foremost to be there with the new parent and egg.

Also to make sure larger Pokémon didn't accidently step on the egg. That was important too.

King trotted off back to his rock and Erin took that as her que there had been no other eggs in the night. She took the egg back into the incubator room, and placed in in an empty slot near the door, where she marked down the time, parent Pokémon, and trainer name and number. Since Quinn was a regular she could do this all from memory, but she kept track of all Pokémon and trainer information in her poke gear.

The room had fewer eggs then normal that morning. Aside from the normal marked ones in the front belonging to trainers who'd left their Pokémon at the day care, there usually a number of starter Pokémon eggs in the back. Erin would hatch those separately on behalf the Pokémon professors who were more particular about the starter Pokémon they handed out to new trainers. In these cases, Erin would mark on the eggs themselves with little symbols to indicate which starter they would hatch into. Even though she did try to sort these eggs physically, the size limit of the incubation room didn't always allow for them to be as separate as she would like. The personalities of her clients played into things as well. For instance, Professor Elm was very good about picking up the eggs quickly, so there was always room in the Chikorita, Cyndaquil, or Totodile area. Professor Birch however preferred to wait for a larger number of eggs and to pick them up all at once. So Erin would find she had to put Treeko, Torchic, or Mudkip eggs wherever she could.

A few days ago there had been a rather large scientific convention and the Professors who used her service made a point of stopping by to say hello and at pick up their eggs and the young starters that had hatched. Now all that where left in the back were a few eggs where the markings had somehow gotten wiped off. This wasn't a terribly big deal though, as Erin could just hatch them herself and give them to the proper professors at that time.

Finishing up in the incubation room, Erin set back about her chores for the morning: feeding and grooming the rest of the tenants at the daycare. She saw Scout had already started patrolling the perimeter, with the little Phanpy Maple following right on his heels.

Scout generally made sure that no wild Pokémon snuck in and started fights with the Daycare Pokémon. This wasn't normally an issue, but he set about his job with purpose every day. Maple was the youngest Pokémon Erin directly owned, and she had taken to Scout immediately. She'd follow him dutifully for the first part of his patrol, get distracted by Butterfrees and the like, run quickly to catch up to him, and then eventually go off to play with the other day care Pokémon.

While Erin worked she caught sight of a Talonflame cruising overhead. She couldn't make out if there was a trainer on it or not, but it landed in front of the Pokémon center. Guessing it was probably Quinn, Erin debated whether or not to pick up the egg from earlier. She decided it would be a bit awkward to hold onto the egg is she was wrong, so she wrapped up prodding a feeding troph to make sure it wasn't a glutinous Ditto again, filled it to the brim, and went back into the reception hall.

It wasn't Quinn. It was a preschooler named Todd, and he was fighting back tears.

Erin knew that Todd did not own Talonflame. What he did own was a Zigzagoon she was taking care of for him. Between his sobs, Erin got the story out of him. Todd wasn't exactly coherent, so it took about fifteen minutes for Erin to get enough information to piece together what had happened.

In short, his older brother had given him that Zigzagoon for his birthday, with the intention he'd keep it as a playmate. Todd had dropped it off at the Pokémon daycare for a few days and his brother, not knowing it had only been a few days, had come home at that time and thought he'd dumped the Pokémon in the daycare right after he left. Said brother than berated him for abandoning his Pokémon. So in a panic Todd "borrowed" his older brother's Talonflame and flew over to get it back so he wouldn't be in trouble anymore.

Erin decided not to point out that the brother would be even angrier once he discovered his Pokémon was missing, and helped the little boy dry his face. She explained that the receipt she prints out at the end shows the length of the stay, so he'll be able to prove he didn't leave the Zigzagoon there very long at all. She also wrote a note for him explaining the situation and told him to tell his brother to contact her if he had any more questions. With all that out of the way, and Todd a bit calmer, she gave him some candy and asked him to wait a few minutes while she went out back to fetch his Zigzagoon.

Out back Erin scanned the field for that Zigzagoon. She didn't see him, but she did see her Gyarados, Magic, was laying under a tree across the field looking bored. That meant her Psyduck, Psyquack, must be nearby. Magic stuck to Psyquack like glue unless he had some other business to attend to. Psyquack kept tabs on all the little Pokémon that seemed to be nowhere when you needed to find them. Erin jogged closer and finally caught sight of Psyquack playing with three or four Shroomish.

Psyquack was great at looking after the weaker Pokémon in the daycare, and she'd step in if it looked like rough housing was turning into bullying. On the other hand Magic was more grumpy and territorial. He would generally not associate much with the guest Pokémon unless one of them decided to start claiming territory that he viewed as his, or if they started to give Psyquack a hard time. Magic had started out as another trainer's Pokémon himself. His trainer had left him in the daycare to level for a bit while he was still a Magikarp, and even at that stage he wasn't going to take any flack. Some of the other Pokémon in the lake had started to harass him and he fought back, but unfortunately there's only so much you can do with "splash". Psyquack had stepped in at that point to shoo them away. Initially Magic had been insulted that Psyquack had helped him, but her earnest kindness eventually won him over. Erin had managed to get his trainer to trade with her and he became a permanent addition to the daycare.

As a traded Pokémon ready to fight anyone who messed with him, Magic had leveled crazy fast. Getting him to listen to her had required Erin to go out and finish the Gym Leader circuit, although she still hadn't fought the elite four. Once he'd gotten strong enough and intimidating looking enough (evolving helped) he had become annoyed and confused when no one came to fight with him. Erin had to start taking him out just to fight in more battles to get him some exercise, which helped them bond as well. Right after he evolved was also the last time someone had tried to break in, and that was reason enough for Erin to keep him on the main team.

As she approached the group, Psyquack noticed her and waved happily. Magic looked hopeful that there was a fight brewing, but when he realized that Erin was just there for Psyquack he sighed heavily and laid his head down on the grass again.

What Erin was going to say was, "Have you seen the Zigzagoon with the red tip on its tail?", but what said instead was what her brain was just processing, "We're only keeping one Shroomish today".

As soon as she said, the three of the four Shroomish turned pink and gooey, and then back into dittos. Annoyed with herself for still falling for that sort of thing, Erin muttered to herself, "I swear, one day I'm going to get through the whole day without ever mistaking a ditto for anything else. And then I'll just assume I did it anyway"

Erin got the right question out this time and Psyduck happily took her hand and waddled over to some nearby bushes. There the Zigzagoon she was looking for was running in and out of the hedges with a bunch of others.

Erin clapped her hands together and they slowed down and looked over at her. Erin indicated the one with the red tail, "Alrighty, time to go home now!"

His eyes lit up and he bounded over. Erin noticed he was holding some kind of star in his mouth. "Ah, right. Pickup" As she picked him up and carried him back she got a closer look at what he was holding. It looked like a fruit, but she'd never seen it anything like it before. It certainly wasn't local. She wondered if one of the nearby trainers had found some exotic berries to grow in the berry farm.

Erin walked back into the reception room and the Zigzagoon sprung over the counter to meet the little boy, who looked like he'd cried a bit more after Erin had left but was doing his best to be a man now. Erin rung up on the total cashier's stand, "It looks like your Zigzagoon grew 10 levels while he was here, that'll be 1100 pokedollers".

Todd nodded and pulled out his wallet. Erin could see his face fall as he felt how light it was, and her stomach felt icy. She quietly prayed that he'd have just enough to make it through, but all he had was 650. With the way little kids kept secrets Erin knew she couldn't just let him get away paying just over half. She'd have the whole preschool down her neck asking for discounts. He was slow in counting the money, but as he realized how short he was he looked up at her with terrified eyes. Erin did feel for the kid and wanted his story to have a happy ending. So… she decided to lie a little.

"Hmm… looks like you're 450 pokedollers short. Tell you what, I noticed that Zigzagoon of yours is holding a piece of fruit." The boy looked down at his Pokémon and saw the fruit for the first time, "I think I saw them selling that at the store the other day for about 450, so this _one time_ " She held up her finger dramatically and looked him dead in the eye. He nodded earnestly, but she repeated for emphases " _one time_ I'll take that as the rest of your payment". The way she rationalized it, that fruit wasn't around here, and for her own curiosity it was worth about that much _to her._ So she was still getting the full payment from him _in a way._

He agreed and happily took off on the Talonflame. Erin waved him off with a smile but couldn't help thinking darkly, "If my younger sibling took off with my Talonflame, I would filet him alive. I hope that kid has the good sense to at least land a little ways away from his home when he gets back so his brother doesn't see him".

The rest of the day was about as hectic as normal. She ran outside, she ran in to meet customers; she took care of Pokémon, she spoke with people. Erin had been hoping to get some shopping done that day, but there was never quite enough of a lag for her to get away.

While the daycare had started out manageable, Erin was quickly coming to realize she needed more human help. She loved her Pokémon, and working with them, but there were some things you just needed people to do. There was her health to think about as well. Now, while Erin had always been insanely healthy, if anything _where_ to knock her out would she be able to get someone in to take care of the business and Pokémon for however long it took her to get back on her feet?

She wrapped up the business day at 6pm (12 hour days were becoming increasingly more common), and meet up with her six party Pokémon for dinner. Since she relied on them so heavily for different jobs on the daycare they're schedules could shift so much they might not see each other for days. They'd made a point of at least having dinner together. For desert she decided they should each try a bit of the star fruit she'd gotten earlier. She smelled it and it was sweet. Sort of like a peach, but with a hint of tanginess.

As soon as he got his portion Quicksilver jumped up onto a cupboard and ate it greedily. Scout was happy at the treat and accepted it graciously. Maple was ecstatic and Erin had a hard time giving her her portion because she was jumping around so much.

Magic looked disgusted at the pittance he was given, but seeing his sour expression made Erin cock an eyebrow and say, "We only had one. If you don't want your share, give it to someone else". Psyquack did a "cheers" sort of motion and bumped her piece with his. Magic relented and ate his piece, and seemed happy enough.

King was the last one to come up slowly to get his piece. The he climbed up into Erin's lap, curled up, and stared it for a while. Then he looked back up at her questioningly. As Erin took a bite into her piece King studied her face for a while, poked his piece with his paw, and slowly ate it too.

Before she went to bed that night Erin went over the books for the daycare. Even with the professors picking up most of the eggs a few days ago and it being only an average busy day, she had still been overtasked. Her earlier thoughts about hiring someone else on weighed on her mind. She studied the ledger, double checking things here or there, looking for any strain that might excuse putting this off any longer, but everything was in the black.

She tapped her pen against her lower lip while she went over the situation in head. Finally she sighed, "There is no getting around this, I've either got to hire someone or downsize"

Scout, who had recently taken up the habit of coloring coloring books in Erin's room before bed, had been watching her sigh heavily as she did her paperwork. He now put a paw on her arm. Erin looked down at his worried expression, smiled gently, and patted his head, "Nothing to worry about, I've just been procrastinating on something I need to do"  
Scout didn't move and didn't look convinced. Erin decided to take this as the push she needed and smiled a defeated smile. She turned in her chair so she was squarely facing him.

"Tell you what, I'll take care of it tomorrow. You can come with me and we'll go into town and get all the paperwork I don't want to do all squared away" Scout looked skeptical so Erin added, "If we aren't out by two then you can come find me and drag me away from whatever I'm doing, OK?"

Scout reluctantly accepted and went back to his coloring book, but he kept an eye on her, as though he expected to see she'd crossed her fingers behind her back. Erin laughed a little, to Scout's annoyance, and starting marking down what she needed to accomplish in town.

The big thing was: before she hired on anyone she wanted to change her business from a sole proprietorship to a Limited Liability Company (LLC), and she had been averse to spending an afternoon filling out paperwork. Technically speaking she didn't have to change just to hire someone, but it meant if the help she hired turned out to be a bad person and her business was held responsible, then the most she could lose would be the business and not her home.

If she could get that straightened out before the end of the day, she could also swing by the employment agency and see if she could recruit anyone short term from there. Maybe she could even try recruiting some of her regular customers who might be interested in becoming breeders themselves.

With that rough plan in place, Erin got up to truly get ready for bed. Scout reluctantly put his coloring book back on the shelf and left to go sleep in his bed in the kitchen, looking back at her as she closed the door behind him. As she spent those moments between lying down in bed and actually sleeping to go over her plan for the next day, her heart made a small protest she couldn't entirely ignore.

If Erin were honest with herself, and she tried to be, the reason she'd put off hiring someone else for so long wasn't paperwork or money or time. It was because there were people who were just bad out there, and she ran the risk of losing everything she and her Pokémon had worked for if she let that kind of person into her life. It was a scary leap of faith to make. " _But,"_ she thought as she rolled her blanket around herself for more warmth, " _there are good people out there too._ _That's why I don't want to get smaller, because if I just say no once I'm past the work I can do on my own then I'd risk turning a good person away…"_

Somewhere in that thought sleep fully settled in. It might have been something in that fruit, but she slept much, much deeper that night.

At 4 AM the next day, Erin's alarm went off as usual.

Her bed was so warm though, and she had slept so deeply and comfortably. She wanted to keep in her warm, warm bed and keep on sleeping. She curled up tighter and set about the task of opening her eyes but they protested with the need to go back to that comfortable sleep. So she turned on her stomach and put out her hand with the intent to pick up her alarm clock and put in on snooze for a few more minutes.

Except she couldn't feel it.

All she could feel was her mattress.

She stretched her arm as far as she could and managed to pry her eyes open just a little. The world was bleary, but she could see the alarm clock where it always was on her night stand. She was momentarily perplexed why she couldn't reach it.

" _Oh, right, I must have moved in my sleep",_ She scooted forward , _"I'm still half asleep so I'm not thinking very fast"_ She scooted right up next to the alarm clock and put out her hand to pick it up.

Except this time her fingers couldn't fully wrap around it.

With the world getting a bit more into focus as well, Erin realized something about her own arm. It was orangish red, short and stubby, with stubby fingers.

That woke her up suddenly and fully. She sat up staring transfixed at her own arm. The first and only answer that was in her head didn't make any sense. You can't work in a Pokémon daycare without seeing and taking care of a lot of baby Charmanders, so there was no mistake about it.

She was looking at a Charmander's arm.

*/*\\*/*\\*/*\\*/*\\*/*\\*/*\\*/*\\*/*\\**/*\\*/*\\*/*\\*/*\\*/*\\*/*\\*/*\\*/*\\*

Nonstory comments from Mounkey:

Since this account's been fairly inactive for a quite a while, I just wanted to take a moment to explain something about how James and I use it and what this section down here is.

This account was designed to be a shared. Normally, we would alternate chapters. In this case however: this story will most likely be written by just me. I bring this up more as a beforehand alert that a sudden change in writing style and/or a plot detour _could_ happen. James has the right to throw a curve ball at me at any time. Why am I uploading this here rather than my personal account then? Because I've actually had more fun with this set up, if I'm 100% honest. I'd also like to revive it. Aside from just this story I'd like to start adding a bit more to the other stories we have on file, even where it isn't technically my turn. I should probably update our profile as well. I just pulled it up and we haven't updated that in three years.

The other thing I wanted to clarify was this section down here. To expand on what I said, this is a shared account with an old friend. On most of our stories there is a section where we'll talk to each other, and I did notice the placement could be a bit random or confusing. So for this story, I'll use the "*/*\\*" repeating pattern to mark the end of the chapter and the transition to other topics. That includes either a reader announcement like this, to a message to James. Hopefully this will avoid confusion in the future. A different pattern (such as "***" or "! ! ! ") might be used to show a break in the story. I have seen James make use of them for scene changes.

With all that explained now, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and look forward to the rest of the story.


	2. Am I a Charmander?

_I need to look in a mirror_ , Erin thought as she did her best to struggle out from under her blankets. Simple tasks become weirdly difficult when your fingers become much shorter and you're starting to panic.

Once she got the blankets off, she tried to jump out of bed, but her legs were also much shorter than she'd accounted for and she fell off rather painfully on her shoulder. As she got to her feet she caught sight of what had to be _her_ tail, orange with a bit of fire on it, and even though she tried not to look, she had seen her feet as well. They were rounder, and orange as well, with unmistakable Charmander claws. Once again, the only answer she could think of didn't add up. She couldn't have turned into a Charmander.

She awkwardly waddled as fast as she could to the door (not being used to a tail, it was making running difficult). As she turned back to her bed in confusion, and a strangely reassuring thought occurred to her. _If I really turned into a Charmander, my tail would have lit my bed on fire. That didn't happen, so I can't have turned into a Charmander._

The handle was a bit high up and she struggled to get her hands (Paws? Claws?) around it. She found however, that she couldn't open it. It was then that panic really started to set in. She scratched at it and clawed at it desperately. She did that for a minute or so before her self-discipline kicked back in and she forced herself to calm down and take a deep breath.

And then she heard a primal cry of terror outside her door.

Fear hit her stomach. That wasn't a Pokémon's scream, it was a man's.

And not a boy's, a man's.

A man's whose voice she didn't recognize.

As each thought hit like a block of ice one after the other, a strange thing happened to Erin's panic, it turned to rage. There was a stranger in her house and she was stuck on annoying trivial stuff like possibly turning into a Pokémon and turning a door handle. All rational thoughts left her mind and she used her rage on the door, ramming it over and over again.

Outside the screaming stopped and for a moment the only sound was Erin beating at the door. Then there was the sound of footsteps running down the hall followed by the sound of crashing outside her room. The door was yanked open and hatred washed over Erin as she got a good look at the interloper.

He was buck necked, and that pissed Erin off.

It's not that there is necessarily a gentleman's code to burglaries or thefts that dictates a particular attire, so it wasn't exactly like she was expecting a suit and tie, but there was something obnoxiously indecent about not even having the good manners to cover his privets when breaking into another person's home that offended Erin on a personal level.

Additionally, for a young woman living alone with no one else but her Pokémon (who were not currently in the vicinity), having a completely naked unknown man rip her bedroom door open when she felt confused and vulnerable triggered something of a fight or flight response. Having just ascertained that she was trapped, that left fight.

Erin lunged forward and bit the man's leg as hard as she possibly could. Her fangs sunk into his flesh and she tasted blood. There was no way she could have broken the skin so fast if she was human. For some reason, it was this action and not her appearance, height, and lack of apposable thumbs that caused her to fully accept that she had in fact turned into a Charmander. She didn't need a mirror anymore, she needed to protect her home. If she was a Pokémon now, that just meant she would fight him directly.

The man yelped and fell over, crashing to the ground. It looked like he'd already knocked over a pile of board games before Erin had gotten out and he now feel on some Parcheesi dice. The bite had caused him enough shock to topple him down, but the dice were where he really took damage. This annoyed Erin, but she remembered she was probably only level one, maybe level five at highest.

Then he yelled in a voice that is normally reserved for swearing, "Marowak!"

 _Shit-_ , She loosened her bite in shock, _Is this Scout!? If I've turned into a Pokémon could he have turned into a human?_ She had exactly enough time for these two thoughts before the man kicked her in the face and sent her flying against the wall.

As she got reoriented, he scrambled to all fours and bared his teeth at her angrily, ready to fight now. With her new theory about who this person was, Erin took a defensive stance and looked for anything that might reinforce her theory. His hair was white with some black flacks here or there, and his skin has a light tan, both very similar in color to Scout's skull and fur. His defensive stance of staying on the ground on all fours was weird for an adult human. He was probably not getting to his feet either because not having a tail was throwing off his balance, or similar to Erin's shorter limbs _his_ longer limbs were causing him difficulty.

The look in his eyes said that he didn't recognize her either, and attacking him had established her as the enemy. He too was trying to protect the house from an intruder despite his circumstances and Erin felt a parental sense of pride at this. He could also just be standing his ground in his own territory after being attacked. That was possible too.

His eyes flashed angrily in frustration and Erin realized he kept twitching his muscles with increasing aggression. Erin suddenly realized what he was doing. _He's trying to use earthquake._ _Of course, he's still trying to fight as a Pokémon. That should buy me some time._

She turned and ran to the back of the hallway. Her room was at the end of the hall so there wasn't much room left, but putting a bit of distance between them caused Scout a moment of confusion as he didn't know quite how to chase her. A scary thought occurred to Erin as she turned to face, _What if he realizes he can use pokéballs now and catches me before I can calm him down?_

She tried to say, "Scout is that you?" but what she said instead was, "Charrrrr-mander?"

She didn't seem to get her meaning through, but her sudden change in attitude from aggressive to urgent caught his attention. She tried again, focusing on just his name.

"Charmander. Char. Char. Charss. Chasco. Char. Sss…" She breathed in and out like a singing exercise as she felt her away around her new vocal cords. S…co…ut"

Scout's eyes went from confusion to disbelief to wounded suspicion. Erin breathed in and out again slowly and worked her way around the words, "This… is… Er…in." Slow breath in. Slow breath out. Focus and speak clearly and slowly, "Are you... Ssssscou…t?

She stared him firmly in the eye and he had a moment of pure disbelief. He looked over her suddenly and must have picked up on a number of things that were similar to her human appearance. He hung his head and nodded. With the threat gone and taking in their situations, he started to cry. Erin waddled up to him and hugged his head while she ran her claws through his hair. He hugged her tightly and cried silently while she did this. They both took their time.


End file.
